Ben Stein

Actor

1944-11-25

Quotes by Ben Stein

• It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.

  Read quote

• The America that we knew as the smartest place on the planet is gone with the wind.

  Read quote

• Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.

  Read quote

• If Iran and North Korea, by some horrible, devilish, nightmarish scenario, got together and went to war at the same time, one against Saudi Arabia and one against South Korea, I don't know what we would do about that. I don't know that we could stop them short of using nuclear weapons.

  Read quote

• If there's a recession, I'd buy stocks. That's when you make money: when markets are spooked.

  Read quote

• The successful people of this world take life as it comes. They just go out and deal with the world as it is.

  Read quote

• I don't believe the most successful people are the ones who got the best grades, got into the best schools, or made the most money.

  Read quote

• The people who did the collateralized mortgage obligations, sold them to pension funds, then sold them short, then bought credit default swap insurance on them, are just amazing. They are a law unto themselves.

  Read quote

• Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child's tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It's not funny and it's not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn't the least bit funny.

  Read quote

• Darwinism doesn't explain where gravity comes from. It doesn't explain where thermodynamics comes from. It doesn't explain where the laws of physics come from. It doesn't explain where matter came from.

  Read quote

• I'd say the main way people get into terrible financial trouble is just to spend too much money relative to their income, and that is an endemic problem in the United States of America, and that's the kind of thing that should be taught about in schools.

  Read quote

• It's a great stretch for me to do my game show. It's very hard. It's not me at all. The only part that's me is sort of when I'm sitting in the booth looking tormented. That's the only part that's the real me.

  Read quote

• I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against.

  Read quote

• Yes, Americans can still get credit for cars and trucks and refrigerators, and those businesses are doing well. But just try to get a home loan now.

  Read quote

• It's really amazing that in the age of unbelief, as a smart man called it, there isn't even more fraud. After all, with no God, there's no one to ever call you to account, and no accounting at all if you can get away with it.

  Read quote

• I think Darwinism as a theory explaining evolution within species is incredibly brilliant - just unbelievably, incredibly brilliant.

  Read quote

• We're a lazy, undisciplined generation. I don't exempt myself: I spend way too much, even though I make a good income.

  Read quote

• I was a trial lawyer. At the same time, I was a teacher. I taught about the political and social content of film for American University. Then I left and became a teacher at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I taught about the political and social content of film, but I also taught a course in law for undergraduates.

  Read quote

• It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is finished when it surrenders.

  Read quote

• Traders can cause short-term volatility. In the long run, the market must revert to a sensible price/earnings multiple.

  Read quote